Album Review: 박혜진 Park Hye Jin - How Can I EP

Korean dance and pop have been making honest inroads into the popular consciousness of US music fans in the past decade. By way of example, earlier this year, I spoke with a woman for two hours at my office about her daughter's obsession with Black Pink (it was less grueling than it sounds). It reminded me of the way that parents used to marvel over my generation's obsession with the Spice Girls and later N'Sync. If you want my opinion (and if you're reading this, you presumably do) the chart incursions by Asian pop stars are long overdue. Their success is predicated on the fact that most of their songs take some legitimate and clearly recognizable talent to write and perform. Aaaaaaaaand you can actually freaking dance to most of them! These are compliments that I literally can not pay to any popular US performing or recording artist who comes to mind at the moment (and yes, this includes the ones you're thinking of as well).

Korean bedroom producer and composer Park Hye Jin is, of course, nothing like the artists who chart, either in the US or in Korea (or both). No, she belongs to the variety of electric-pop artists who still thrives in what's left of the blogosphere (and all those substacks in terminal need of editorial oversight). Park has thankfully been able to parlay the positive press she's received from these lonely parts of the web into some high profile gigs with Jamie XX and others. And you know what? You get after it girl! You do not want to peak as the passing object of someone's affection, where they gush momentarily over your EP in an issue of an e-newsletter that will go directly into my trash folder upon receipt. Park deserves better, and let me tell you why.  

Park's first EP (or as she describes it, "mini-album") If You Want It was a dream-like cataract of heavy beats and lo-fi house maneuvers that you could vogue the night away to. Her follow up, How Can I, is significantly more adventurous in its approach, almost to a fault. The opening track "Like This" claps and wiggles like a cut off her previous album, complete with cool, rejuvenating washes of sound, glistening beats, and softly prodding vocal performances. It's on the following track, though, that things start to get interesting. "Can You" begins with the same glossy, polish and rinsing recital, but with an increased tempo that gives it a discernable edge, the passing bite of which is deepened by the push and pull of the lyrics, repeating, "I love you / And I fucking hate you" in quick, delirious succession. On "How Can I," Park emerges from behind the mixing-board and allows her voice to carry the melody of the track in a subtle ringing of emotions. It's a great way to break up this short album's flow and provides an excellent bridge to the more acidic production and peppering of impatient percussion on "NO," which ends with Park repeating the lyric "Shut the fuck up" as a kind of unsettling mantra. The EP ends with the lightly footwork influenced (more juke imbued really), up-tempo and infectious tug of "How Come" and the tightly sequenced, prattle and pounce of "Beautiful." There are parts of How Can I that compare unfavorably to its predecessor, but as far as leaps from one's comfort zone are concerned, I'd say Park has pretty much stuck the landing.

Grab a copy of How Can I from Ninja Tune here.